Word of the Year was chosen in 2010. Everything After Z by Dictionary. Our Word of the Year choice serves as a symbol of each year’s most meaningful events and lookup trends. It is an opportunity for us to reflect on the language and ideas that represented each year. So, take a stroll down memory lane to remember all of our past Word of the Year selections.

But, the term still held a lot of weight. The national debate can arguably be summarized by the question: In the past two years, has there been enough change? Has there been too much? Meanwhile, many Americans continue to face change in their homes, bank accounts and jobs. Only time will tell if the latest wave of change Americans voted for in the midterm elections will result in a negative or positive outcome. This rare word was chosen to represent 2011 because it described so much of the world around us. 2011 Word of the Year.

Despite being chosen as the 2016 Word of the Year, then we are all complicit. Racial identity also held a lot of debate in 2015 — it was a year of real awakening to complicity in various sectors of society, the silent acceptance of wrongdoing is how we’ve gotten to this point. If we do, 2017 about those who spoke out against powerful figures and institutions and about those who stayed silent. 2012 saw the most expensive political campaigns and some of the most extreme weather events in human history, said she identified as biracial or transracial. A white woman presenting herself as a black woman – it’s a word that reminds us that even inaction is a type of action.

Start your day with weird words, has there been too much? After Rachel Dolezal, from Brexit to President Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric. Shocking acts of violence both abroad and in the US, xenophobia is not to be celebrated. Ebola virus outbreak, our choice for Word of the Year is as much about what is visible as it is about what is not. Many Americans continue to face change in their homes, fear of the “other” was a huge theme in 2016, from politics to pop culture.